In 2020, Auckland woman Shayna Clausen's son Azaiah Clausen - then aged 2 - was attacked by an American bulldog cross. Researchers have been tracking a national rise in dog bites.
In 2020, Auckland woman Shayna Clausen's son Azaiah Clausen - then aged 2 - was attacked by an American bulldog cross. Researchers have been tracking a national rise in dog bites.
An alarming nationwide rise in dog attacks has left experts and advocates searching for answers. Jamie Morton reports.
Kiwis are now eight times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of dog attacks than four decades ago – with several thousand children among those injured each year.
That’s according to a new analysis by an Auckland Hospital doctor, who says there doesn’t appear to be a single reason for the worsening trend.
It’s prompted fresh calls to overhaul dog control laws and a major new campaign in Auckland, where council officers suspect they’re only seeing a fraction of the harm.
As an emergency department veteran, Dr Natasha Duncan-Sutherland has seen her share of nasty wounds caused by dog attacks, leaving her curious about the bigger picture.
In a series of new studies, she and colleagues have crunched the numbers to reveal that ACC claims for dog bite injuries have jumped by more than a third in just nine years.
Of the more than 13,682 received in the last year, more than 4500 were in Auckland – yet the data showed a consistent rise across all regions.
Concerningly, just under 3000 of all dog-related injury claims in that year involved children and young people – and most of the 180 hospitalised after attacks required surgery.
Duncan-Sutherland said around half of attacks on kids involved bites to the face and neck – as happened to one Auckland toddler who was mauled by an abused rescue dog belonging to a friend of his birth father’s in 2020.
“He was just spinning around, holding his little toy ambulance, and the dog just lunged for his face and dragged him two and a half metres,” said the boy’s mum, who asked not to be named.
“It was like having my heart ripped out – we didn’t even know if he was going to survive at first.”
Her son underwent eight hours of surgery and, despite having had multiple reconstructive procedures carried out on his face since, has a “lifetime” of operations ahead of him.
Along with ongoing psychological trauma, she said her son, now aged 6, has been bullied over his facial injuries – something that recently prompted her to pull him out of school.
In 2020, two-year-old Azaiah Clausen was attacked by an American bulldog cross. The dog's owners were sentenced in court this month.
Auckland mum Shayna Clausen endured the same horror in 2020 when her son Azaiah, then 2, was mauled by an American bulldog – leaving him with facial lacerations that required emergency plastic surgery.
Auckland Council manager of animal management Elly Waitoa said the large number of incidents reported was “but the tip of the iceberg”.
“We know that many more occur in family homes that are never reported,” she said, urging owners and witnesses to alert the council of any attacks.
“We know that if a dog bites once, it will bite again.”
Waitoa said the problem is partly a legacy of Covid lockdowns.
“Families at home believed the time was right to acquire a puppy or dog, but were not necessarily looking long-term,” she said.
“The increase can primarily be attributed to the lack of socialisation of dogs during those lockdowns, lack of desexing, lack of supervision of children around family dogs, and dog owners allowing their dogs to roam.”
When it came to the national picture, Duncan-Sutherland said several unknowns needed addressing.
Auckland Hospital's Dr Natasha Duncan-Sutherland.
It wasn’t clear whether the number of unregistered dogs in New Zealand was rising, which could explain why she’d found no obvious link between local registration numbers and reported attacks.
“Lax” regulations around dog breeding also made it tough to tell whether that was a factor.
Another issue was councils being inequitably resourced, leaving small animal control teams to manage large regions with high canine numbers.
And while councils had powers to act through their bylaws, Duncan-Sutherland felt more could also be done at a national level.
The New Zealand Veterinary Association’s Sally Cory agreed, telling the Herald current legislation fell short.
That included the system for classifying dogs as “menacing” or “dangerous”, which she argued diverted resources by unnecessarily restricting dogs that posed no real threat.
“Efforts should focus on addressing aggressive behaviour, rather than the breed or type of dog.”
Asked whether the Government would consider a review, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown said the Dog Control Act still gave councils a wide range of powers for enforcement.
“While central government is responsible for the legislative framework, it is councils that implement dog control.”
‘Any dog can bite’
Duncan-Sutherland’s research pointed to another measure that could make a difference: educating adults about the danger to kids.
“Tamariki are vulnerable to traumatic dog-related injuries because of their small size and therefore, must be protected,” said Mareta Hunt, Safekids Aotearoa director Mareta Hunt said.
“Moreover, tamariki are not developed enough physically and developmentally to respond to serious threats, attacks and harm as adults or teenagers are.”
In May, Auckland Council launched its Any Dog Can Bite campaign, aimed at driving a shift in attitude toward more responsible dog ownership.
“This problem is not going away, so we need to keep hammering home the message,” councillor Josephine Bartley said.
“We know most dog owners do the right thing, but for those who don’t, we need to keep the messaging in front of them.”
While the immediate focus was on high-risk areas for attacks, Bartley hoped the campaign would ultimately become a national one.
The message in its title resonated with Auckland dog behaviourist “Doggy” Dan Abdelnoor.
Dan Abdelnoor with Moses, Inca and Peanut. Photo / Michael Craig
“I’ve worked with thousands of dogs, and hundreds were biters – they all bite the same,” said Abdelnoor, who runs regular webinars for owners with his company The Online Dog Trainer.
“The difference is simply that the bigger the dog is, the stronger their jaws, and the damage is greater.”
Abdelnoor questioned whether the rise in attacks also owed to stress flowing on to animals in under-pressure households – or perhaps more people getting in dogs’ spaces for social media snaps.
He urged people not to approach dogs without first asking their owners; leaving sleeping dogs alone; and especially keeping kids away from them when they were carrying food.
ACC injury prevention programme lead James Whitaker said most dogschoolrelated injuries involving children happened in their own home, or that of a friend or relative’s.
“A lot of it comes down to supervising children and teaching kids the right way to do things.”
Jamie Morton is a specialist in science and environmental reporting. He joined the Herald in 2011 and writes about everything from conservation and climate change to natural hazards and new technology.
